Jarrett Walker
Public transit planning consultant; wrote Human Transit and argues that a network's shape follows from what a city decides it wants.
Jarrett Walker did not write this page. What is this?
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Where they publish
Blog Human Transit His blog on transit network design and the choices behind it. Has a feed.
Recent
- The “Waymo Will Make Transit Obsolete” Argument 16 Sept 2026
- Does Portland Still Care about Transit? 23 Aug 2026
- An Instructive Win for Transit in Spokane 12 Aug 2026
Show 7 more
- New Interview of Me on “War on Cars” Podcast 5 Aug 2026
- New Interview of Me on Strong Towns Podcast 14 Jul 2026
- Public Transit Is Not “Coming Back” … It’s Doing Something Better 23 Jun 2026
- Des Moines: Welcome to Your New Transit Network 15 Jun 2026
- Atlanta: Welcome to Your New Transit Network 12 May 2026
- Oregon Public Broadcasting Interview of Me 11 May 2026
- Our Intensive Transit Network Design Course Comes to Chicago! 7 May 2026
Link verified 20 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 11 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
A transport idea that does not scale does not matter, and it is for the rich: inefficiency is inequality.
If it doesn’t scale, it’s for the rich. Or to put it another way: Inefficiency is inequality.
Elon Musk's Tunnel: It Doesn't Scale, so it Doesn't Matter Said 20 Dec 2018
The real cost of transport demonstration projects is that they confuse decision-makers about whether mass transit still needs building.
While delivering almost nothing useful, they are confusing elite opinion about whether we still need to build mass transit, which we do.
Elon Musk's Tunnel: It Doesn't Scale, so it Doesn't Matter Said 20 Dec 2018
Technology never changes geometry: a transport problem has to be solved spatially before it is solved at all.
When we are talking about space, we are talking about geometry, not engineering, and technology never changes geometry.
Basics: Technology Never Changes Geometry Said 21 Jul 2016
Show 8 more
Replacing big transit vehicles with small ones puts more vehicles on the street to move the same people, which is the one thing a dense city has no room for.
In dense cities, where big transit vehicles (including buses) are carrying significant ridership, any “small vehicles replacing big vehicles” solution increases the total number of vehicles on the road at any time.
Basics: Technology Never Changes Geometry Said 21 Jul 2016
Tech marketing assumes that whatever sells to the rich today sells to everyone tomorrow, but some things stop working when everybody buys them.
It runs on the assumption that whatever we sell to the wealthy today we can sell to the masses tomorrow. But some things stop working when everybody buys them.
Basics: Technology Never Changes Geometry Said 21 Jul 2016
Frequent fixed-route buses are the only way to cover a whole city with useful transit quickly, which makes them a land-use decision rather than a fallback.
But the only way to grow enough corridors quickly, so that you cover much of the city with frequent service that can succeed in ridership terms, is to take frequent fixed-route bus service seriously.
Basics: Technology Never Changes Geometry Said 21 Jul 2016
Self-driving cars will not fix commuting; the US needs public transportation instead.
However successful driverless cars become, transit will remain crucial for dense cities because cities are defined by a shortage of space per person.
no, autonomous cars will not "abolish transit" in dense cities Said 4 Nov 2014
No dense city anywhere runs without heavy reliance on transit, and no new transport technology changes the space arithmetic that makes that true.
There is no dense city in the world that does not rely heavily on transit, for reasons of space-efficiency that none of the new technologies can change.
no, autonomous cars will not "abolish transit" in dense cities Said 4 Nov 2014
In low-density places driverless taxis really will beat buses, and transit agencies should hand that work over and concentrate on dense corridors.
Driverless taxis will be more efficient than transit in these areas.
no, autonomous cars will not "abolish transit" in dense cities Said 4 Nov 2014
The problem of cars in cities is a geometry problem, not a technology problem: no invention creates room for everybody's car.
But the problem of cars in cities is not a technology problem, it’s a geometry problem: a problem of space.
Technology vs Geometry at the Venice Biennale Said 7 Jun 2010
Rich people will have self-driving cars and the city will not be built around them.
Rich people may have self-driving cars, but they won’t be the basis of the city.
Technology vs Geometry at the Venice Biennale Said 7 Jun 2010
Beliefs others hold too
Self-driving cars will not fix commuting; the US needs public transportation instead. 2 hold this
However successful driverless cars become, transit will remain crucial for dense cities because cities are defined by a shortage of space per person.
no, autonomous cars will not "abolish transit" in dense cities Said 4 Nov 2014
What is a korrent?
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